Mingled Sense and Nonsense
by Commander
Summary: When your humanity is taken from you... sometimes you have to take some strange steps to regain it.
1. The Man

(AN: Ummm… hi? (nervous chuckle) I'm a total newbie in this fandom, I only started watching this show less than a month ago (really)—although by all accounts I should have been watching it way before now, its humor is right up my alley, and Doofenshmirtz is _so _my kind of villain you have _no idea… _ahem, so anyway, less than a month and I've already written fanfic and bought a Doofenshmirtz T-shirt, that means there's no going back, right? ;)

I can't claim the idea for this story as my own. I got hit with a plot bunny while reading the Wild Mass Guessing theories on the Phineas and Ferb page of TVTropes. So no, it's not really my idea, but my mind wouldn't let it go, so… kudos to whoever first planted this idea, it certainly took a life of its own in my head. :)

This was supposed to be a one-shot. Really. I write too damn much. I've split it into three parts for your benefit, although it's still all meant to be read and processed as a whole.

Disclaimer blah blah blah _Phineas and Ferb _belongs to Dan Povenmire, Swampy Marsh, and Disney, aka not me, blah blah blah.

Hope you like it! And please drop me a review if you're so inclined, like any fanfic writer I live for them. ;))

…

Life for a cop is tough on a good day. And tough enough for one living on his own. Add a family to the mix, and it's almost too full a plate to handle.

Just ask Phineas Flynn.

As far as anyone else knew, his job was dangerous enough, even though Danville wasn't particularly overrun with criminals. There's a certain risk involved in taking the job in any setting, and Phineas of course knew this. When he had married, his job… his _jobs, _rather…and how he viewed them hadn't changed, but the birth of his daughter, Candace, certainly rearranged his perspective. How hard it would be even with a boring job, leaving his wife and little girl alone for so long, but with occupations as dangerous as his, when he could never guarantee for sure that he'd be coming back home every time he left—

"Hey, Agent P! Great party, huh?"

Phineas was jerked out of his contemplation by Andy Vesk, aka Agent A, to such an extent that he nearly spilled his green Kool-Aid all over himself. "Uh, yeah, great party, everyone needs an Ides of March celebration."

"And the OWCA is thoughtful enough to throw one for us!" said Andy.

This was not a police department party. For Phineas had another occupation, one that not even his wife knew about.

He was also an undercover secret agent.

"Are we all here?" Phineas asked Andy. "All twenty-six of us?"

Andy nodded. "Yep, counted them all myself. Agent Z was the last to arrive, as always…"

Phineas bit his lip in worry, his grip on his plastic cup of Kool-Aid tightening. "I just don't think it's such a good idea for all of us to be in the same place at once. It's like we're advertising that we're the perfect target for some fiendish plot."

"Come on, no one knows we're here," said Andy dismissively.

"I'd assume _someone _knows, given by all those directional 'Secret Agent Party Here, Follow the Arrows' signs pointing the way…" said Phineas with an exasperated eye-roll.

"So your wife's expecting, right?" asked Andy amiably, changing the subject. "When's the baby due?"

Phineas smiled, despite the worry. "In about two months."

"Is Candace excited about becoming an older sister?"

"I think so. When we told her she was going to be getting a baby brother she had this evil little 'I'm-so-going-to-enjoy-getting-him-in-trouble' look."

"So you know for sure it's a boy?"

"That's what the ultrasounds seem to indicate. Of course, we have a girl name ready too, but it seems pretty certain that we'll be getting a Stephen."

"Stephen, huh? That's a good name. A very good name. And Linda's holding up alright?"

Phineas nodded. "Of course. She's happy that he's coming at the end of the school term—gives her a longer maternity leave and a longer summer vacation!"

"I think she had the right idea, becoming a teacher. Three whole months off!"

The lights suddenly flickered, halting the various conversations and lighthearted anecdotal tales. All twenty-six secret agents looked about suspiciously, their special training and talents immediately kicking in.

But they weren't enough.

After the first brief flicker, the power suddenly completely shut off, leaving the underground chamber immersed in blackness. And just as suddenly, a searing electrical jolt shot through every agent in the room, and Phineas would have screamed from the most agonizing pain he had ever felt, but the pain was too strong to even allow that, nearly crushing him with the sensation that his entire body, from his lungs to his brain to his mouth, were being pulled apart.

And then there was blessed unconsciousness.

…

Phineas awoke slowly, numb and groggy with the still lingering pain. He had fallen over on his back and, try as he might—wow, he really _was _numb—he couldn't seem to even flip himself over, let alone stand up. It almost felt as though his limbs had shrunk to nearly useless lengths. With his aching right arm… or appendage that should have been his right arm… he somehow managed to reach the top of his head, feeling the familiar felt of his agency fedora. At least _something _felt as it should be.

The power was still out, so when Phineas finally managed to open his eyes, nothing but darkness greeted him. He could hear breathing and almost animal-like grunts around him as the other agents seemed to be awakening as well.

Phineas opened his mouth. He meant to call out _"What's going on?" _but nothing came out. Nothing _could _come out. _"What's going on here?" _he tried to demand yet again, but all that happened was that his mouth simply opened in a way that felt wrong. A way that almost made him feel like someone had taped a huge duckbill on his mouth. His tongue felt different, his throat felt different, his mouth felt like a _beak, _and not even the smallest squeak was escaping from him.

_Good lord, what's happened to us?_

With great effort, Phineas finally turned himself over, flopping onto his belly—and simultaneously quite comfortably on his hands and feet. _Oh dear God! _How short _were _his limbs? What had _happened _to him? Curse this darkness! Who had done this and why? _What was going on?_

In very close proximity to Phineas, a horse whinnied frantically.

Wait, a _horse?_

And then the yelp, and then unmistakable mournful howl of a coyote. The frantic chirp of a katydid. The bray of a llama.

Phineas's mind swam in horror.

_Animals?_

Heavy, racing footsteps cut into the zoo sounds, and the doors to the secret underground party chamber burst open, Phineas wincing from the light. But he could still hear the unmistakable voice of his boss, Major Monogram, cry out in horror, _"Oh good God ANIMALS? Where are my agents? And why are you all wearing my agents' fedoras?" _

Phineas's eyes began to adjust to the light just in time to see a look horrific realization seep into Monogram's face. And just in time for the same realization to sink into his very bones—whatever kind of bones they were.

"My _God," _cried Monogram. "You've all been turned into _animals!"_

A mournful howl of various animal noises answered in the terrible affirmative.

Phineas wanted to join them, but he still couldn't figure out how to make any sound come out of his beak at all—and yes, he definitely had a beak. It looked similar to a duckbill, in fact. But what _was _he? He couldn't be a duck, since he was on all fours, right? He moved his front right limb again to make doubly sure he wasn't supporting his body weight on a wing… and what he saw made him even more confused. His appendage was webbed, webbed and… furry?

What the hell _was _he?

"Quiet, quiet!" Monogram shouted over the din. "Let's just figure out who's who and then we'll know what to do from there! Agent A! Step forward!"

With a slow, sad shuffle, an aardvark stepped forward.

Phineas drew in his breath. Andy! Andy was an aardvark! He might have been a different species, but there was no mistaking his eyes. Although sad and frightened, they were most certainly Andy's.

Monogram scratched his chin, examining Agent A. "Agent A, it appears you've been turned into an aardvark," he finally said decisively. "This'll certainly put a damper on those clogging lessons we've approved you for, but we'll deal with that later. Agent B?"

And as Monogram went through the alphabet and the agents, Phineas attempted to get his panic under control, so that by the time he got to P he'd be strong and brave in the eyes of his boss… and maybe by then he'd have figured out what the heck he is.

"…Agent O, you're clearly an okapi. It's obvious by those stripes on your buttocks. Thought you could fool me, huh? It was a tough one, but I've got quite the brain for this. Agent P?"

Phineas scooted forward as best he could on his belly and webbed appendages.

Monogram blinked in confusion. "Always have to try and stump me, huh, Agent P? You look like an evolutionary mess… you have a beaver tail and a bill…"

Phineas tried to look behind himself. His neck didn't work right either and he couldn't get it around very far, but he did manage to catch a glimpse of his tail. Long and flat and, well, beaver-like. An evolutionary mess indeed!

"In fact," Monogram was continuing, "you look like some sort of semi-aquatic mammal. Aha! That's it! You're a platypus!" He looked pleased with himself for figuring it out. "Excellent!"

Phineas hoped that his eyes still worked well enough to shoot Monogram a look of disdain. _You think my being turned into a PLATYPUS is EXCELLENT?_

But even if Phineas's expression had been what he intended, Monogram didn't see it. He was already on his way to Agent Q, who was now a displeased-looking quail.

The platypus felt his impatience and anger slowly reach a boiling point as Monogram made his way through the rest of the alphabet. Who _cared _who'd been turned into what animal? Who _cared _about how clever Monogram was that he was able to identify all of them? Who cared, who cared, who _CARED? _It was inconsequential! The only thing that was consequential here was figuring out who had done this to them and why, and _how to change them back! _

"…a zebra, Agent Z. Very original. Ahem, so I guess that's all of you." Monogram turned back around and began pacing in front of the lineup of twenty-six fedora-wearing animals before him, his hands behind his back. "From the gathered facts, it appears that you have all been turned into animals, and quite coincidentally you have all been turned to animals that alliterate with your own names. A stroke of luck, really; none of you will need new code names. Now that everyone's been identified…" He looked across the lineup. "Obviously, you keeping your secret identities will be much easier now that you're animals. This really is a positive step—"

Agent C growled dangerously in disagreement.

Monogram took one startled step back. "Of course, though, hopefully this won't be permanent. We'll find out exactly what happened here, who did it and why, and put a stop to it. But in the meantime…" He suddenly stepped out the door. "We'll fix the lights in here and keep you in here so as to not arouse suspicion, or any funny smells. Hope you'll all understand."

The door slammed shut.

And Phineas finally was able to make a noise—an irritated growl.

…

Days turned to weeks.

The OWCA did fix the lights, and did provide various types of animal feed after Agent J—now a jaguar—tried to eat Agent T—now a tapir. That was just a temporary moment of desperation, however. All the agents were stuck in the same boat, trapped as animals and trapped in an underground lair, unable to speak anymore but in their misery certainly could understand each other.

And there's no way to keep a secret agent down.

Busting out was tough. Agent E, an elephant, had tried ramming through the doors, to no avail. Agent M, a mole, had unsuccessfully attempted digging a tunnel out. But the walls were titanium enforced, and there was no way a mere animal could get out.

But they weren't mere animals. They were secret agents… with tools that they could no longer use, now without opposable thumbs.

Agent P wasn't about to let that stop him, though.

His hands were flat and webbed and stuck nearly straight out from his torso with barely any arms to speak of, but they were still _hands. _And although it took him two weeks to figure out how to even hold his titanium-zapping laser pen, and another week to figure out how to actually press the button while he was holding it… he got it.

He cut a hole right through the wall, large enough for even Agent E to escape from.

The larger animals—_agents_—made no attempts to conceal their stampeding movements throughout the town, attempts that would have been fruitless anyway. But some of the agents were smaller, much smaller. And Agent P was one of them.

Years of highly specialized spy training meant that Phineas could move about the city completely undetected even at his full human height of five foot eight—yes, so he was a little on the short side, but it was advantageous for a secret agent—and now of course he was far shorter yet. The weeks kept trapped in the party room had left him, as well as all the other agents, ample time to figure out how their bodies worked, and Phineas had even began to teach himself how to shakily walk on his hind legs. And now he was stealthily making his way across the city, a platypus undetected, to his house—

Wait a minute. What day was it? Phineas ducked behind a dumpster and shot a look out at a newspaper stand, squinting his eyes to glimpse the date. That agonizingly long stint locked in the windowless room had left him completely lost on time. It was—it was the middle of April already! And it was Thursday. Good. That was all he needed to know. Linda would still be at work and Candace would be at preschool, so there was no point in going home just yet.

He did an elaborate back-flip to land behind an adjacent dumpster, quickly and stealthily making his way to the preschool building.

…

Candace was a very bright, happy, social child—which is why when Phineas discovered her sitting in a corner of the sandbox all by herself, her back turned to the other children, he felt his limbs freeze and his heart break.

His little girl! So sad and all alone—and he of course knew why. Her father was missing, probably no one had any clue where he was, let alone what had happened to him—and his heart clenched again, overcome with the realization that as terrible as these past few weeks had been on him, they must have been far worse on his own family.

Tucking his fedora away, the platypus got down on all fours again and slowly approached his melancholy daughter.

Candace looked up with a surprised gasp, her initial mild fright giving way to confusion. Phineas waited, standing a few feet in front of her, not making any more movement so as to not startle her again.

Candace blinked and cocked her head. "You smell funny."

Phineas took another careful step forward.

"What are you, anyway?"

Phineas tried to make a comforting sound, but the only sound that came from his bill was the single sound he had figured out how to make—the clicking purr.

Thankfully, this noise didn't frighten Candace any more—in fact, it seemed to soothe her. "You're a kitty! A green kitty with a funny tail!" She scooped him up in her arms.

Phineas placed one webbed hand on her arm, his insides shaking with grief. How he longed to comfort her! But how? He wasn't human, he couldn't even _talk, _and—

Candace hugged him close to her cheek. "Maybe I'll get to keep you!"

Phineas felt his beak move into something that might have been a smile, and nuzzled his daughter's neck with the top of his head.

"Okay kids, let's get inside for story time!"

Candace quickly skipped back to the door, grinning wildly. "Mrs. Douglas, Mrs. Douglas, look what I found!" she shouted, holding Phineas out proudly. "I found a kitty!"

Mrs. Douglas let out a shriek at the creature being thrust in her face. "Oh my God—that's not a kitty, that's a—it's a… what _is _that thing?" she asked in confusion, turning to the other preschool teacher, Ms. Zusser.

Ms. Zusser stared. "I… I think that's a… platypus."

"A patty-tus?" Candace repeated in confusion. "What's a patty-tus?"

"A platypus is… that thing you're holding. Where on earth did you find that?"

"He just walked up to me," said Candace with an innocent shrug. "Can I keep him?"

"Um… actually, we'd better just—" Mrs. Douglas reached for Phineas.

Candace shrieked and pulled him back to her chest before Mrs. Douglas had a chance to touch him. _"Don't take him! _He came to me and he's _my _patty-tus!"

"Well… I guess… you'll… need to ask… your mother… if you can keep him," Mrs. Douglas faltered uncertainly.

Phineas purred in amusement. Couldn't really blame the lady for being at a loss of what to do. "Unexpected platypus arrival" probably wasn't covered in the training of a preschool teacher.

Candace laughed in happiness, taking this answer to be a yes. "I get to keep my patty-tus! I'm gonna name you Perry, 'cuz Perry starts with a P like patty-tus."

Phineas blinked.

"Come on, Perry! Let me show you my cubbyhole and my drawings and my preschool and everything I do!" Candace rushed back into the room as fast as her nearly-five-year-old legs could carry her… which was not particularly fast. In fact, it was slow enough for Phineas to not only notice the newspaper sitting on Mrs. Douglas's table, but also to actually read more than the date this time:

_SEARCH FOR MISSING POLICE OFFICERS CALLED OFF  
After one month, still not a single clue to their disappearance_

…

Phineas wouldn't have had to read the headline to realize that.

He had already suspected that was what would happen anyway.

But seeing it in print like that cemented the reality of his situation more than anything else had.

Seeing that, seeing the look in Linda's eyes when she arrived to pick up Candace, seeing the sympathetic touches on her shoulder that Mrs. Douglas and Ms. Zusser gave her, seeing the mild shock and then nearly immediate acceptance that her daughter was clutching a platypus, hearing very few words from Linda on the drive home as Candace blabbered on and on in the backseat about her new patty-tus…

Phineas knew what was coming as soon as they stepped out of the car, back at home, and Linda wearily sat herself down on the living room couch, carefully setting Candace on her knees—she was too pregnant to have a lap to sit on.

_Let me go, Candace, let me go._

But still, Phineas didn't struggle against his daughter's grasp. He _couldn't. _He was about to hear his wife tell their daughter that he would never be coming home again, and yet he had to stay to somehow help them through this. He _had _to. No matter how much it would kill him inside.

"Candace, honey…" Linda finally began softly.

Candace looked up at mother, finally turning her attention away from her platypus.

Linda placed her arms around Candace's shoulders, and Phineas burrowed deeper in both of them—it was almost as if his wife was holding him again. "I need you to be brave. Your daddy… the search teams looked everywhere for him and all his missing friends, and they couldn't find him. I know I told you we had to keep hoping… but sometimes, even when you hope, things don't turn out the way you want. Daddy's not coming back."

Candace clutched Phineas tighter. "Not ever?" she murmured.

Linda gulped, her limbs trembling. Phineas felt his own short, webbed ones tremble too, and he nuzzled Candace again while attempting to, as nonchalantly and yet tenderly as possible, rest one hand on Linda's arm. "Not ever."

Candace's chin dropped and she closed her eyes.

Linda stroked Candace's arm, the platypus flipper on her own arm not distressing her at all. "Your daddy had a very dangerous job, and every day he knew he was taking risks. I don't know what happened to him, but I do know that it wasn't something he wanted. He never wanted to leave you, sweetie. He loved you very much."

Phineas closed his eyes. _Thank you, thank you for taking the words right out of my bill._

"But he went away forever?" Candace whispered.

"Sometimes people go away forever, whether they want to or not," murmured Linda. "That's the way things go."

"Are you gonna go away forever?"

"No, honey. Not if I can help it."

"Is my brother gonna go away forever?"

Linda finally smiled, placing one hand on her belly. "He's definitely gonna stick around."

"What about Perry?"

Linda bit her lip. "Honey… you _found _Perry—"

"Yeah, like we couldn't find Daddy, but I found Perry!"

"Exactly. Someone _else _might have _lost _Perry. He might be from the zoo, or—or someone else in town who has a pet platypus—"

"I don't want Perry to go away."

"But his family is missing him too, Candace, just like we're missing Daddy right now."

Candace's eyes quivered with tears.

"I'll tell you what," Linda conceded. "If we can't find Perry's family, then yes, we can keep him."

"And then we'll be Perry's family," said Candace.

"Yes," smiled Linda. "Even platypuses need families."

Perry purred softly in Candace's and Linda's arms.

It was that day that Phineas Flynn was really and truly dead.

…

Ironic, then, that the very next day, Phineas Flynn was born.

When Candace got out of preschool on Friday, their next-door neighbor Margaret Jones was there to pick her up instead of Linda. Judging by the way Mrs. Douglas and Ms. Zusser greeted her and led Candace to her, Perry could only assume that either she or Linda had called in ahead of time to let them know of the change, although he didn't have a clue as to what the reason for that change could be. (Candace, still enamored with her new pet, had taken the platypus to school again that day, ensuring that most of the other kids kept their distance from her and the strange new animal.)

"Where's Mommy?" Candace asked while climbing into Margaret's car, Perry tucked under her arm.

"She's at the hospital—"

"The _hospital?" _Candace screeched in horror.

"Don't worry, she's alright, it's just that… your little brother decided to come a little early."

Perry jerked involuntarily in Candace's arms.

Candace hardly noticed. "My little brother? Ooh! Are you taking me to the hospital? Can I see him?"

"No, no, he's not born yet, your mommy's just—" _Just in early labor, _Perry mentally completed for Margaret, but she simply finished the statement with "Your brother hasn't actually been born yet. It takes awhile."

"Oh…" Candace blinked. "Why?"

"Because… it just does, that's why." They had arrived home in record time, and Margaret quickly got Candace out of the car and inside the house. "Now you just be a good girl and play with your pet… whatever that is."

"Patty-tus," Candace said. "Perry the patty-tus."

"Right. Patty-tus."

Candace plopped Perry down on the ground and headed straight for her dollhouse, and Perry made no objections. He quickly darted after Margaret as she made her way to the phone.

_Please let Linda and the baby be okay, please let them be okay… _Linda was eight months pregnant, the baby would be a preemie, but not a critical one, right? He'll be developed enough, he _had _to be… he was going to have a son, he was going to have a son, and he should be there, he should be by his wife's side, he shouldn't be _stuck darting around the floor in a platypus's body!_

Margaret placed a call to the hospital to let them know that Candace was home. From what Perry could pick up by only hearing Margaret's side of the conversation, Linda was still in labor, she was being carefully monitored, despite the fact that the baby was coming sooner than expected there seemed to be no complications, and Margaret found Candace's new pet patty-tus… excuse me, _platypus, _kind of creepy.

After supper, Candace had picked up Perry again and taken him to her room to play. Perry kept trying to scamper off again, to be there with Margaret by the phone so he could hear the news of the baby as soon as she did, but upon seeing his daughter's lip quiver the moment he broke free, he stopped, turning back around to her and curling up by her side as she looked at her picture books with him, even painstakingly trying to read aloud a few words. Perry closed his eyes and tried to calm himself, Candace's faltering reading easing his worries.

He heard the phone ring, though, and jumped.

Candace did too, quickly pulling Perry towards her. "Maybe that's the hospital saying that my little brother is born," she whispered, not moving and holding Perry so tightly that he couldn't move either.

Perry felt that he might burst from anticipation.

A few minutes later, Margaret stepped into the room, smiling warmly at Candace.

"Was that the hospital?" Candace asked excitedly.

"You have a little brother," smiled Margaret. "Phineas Stephen Flynn. He's a little small, but he's doing okay, and so is your mom."

Perry froze in numb shock. _Phineas _Stephen Flynn? Linda had named their son after… after _him? _He had never liked his name, and Linda knew that, and… well, she thought he was dead. She thought he was dead, and why _wouldn't_ she name her son after his… after his late father?

And they were doing okay. Both of them were doing okay.

Candace shrieked in excitement, pulling Perry close to her again. "I have a little brother!" she exclaimed.

Perry felt like sobbing from complete… sorrow. He had a son… who would never know him. Who would only know him as the family's pet platypus. He had a daughter who would likely forget him—she wasn't even five years old yet, of course she'd forget, she had already so completely embraced her unseen baby brother and her pet "patty-tus"… and that was for the best. It was best that she wouldn't remember the pain of losing her father in the long run… it was for the best that she was moving on… his daughter was happy and he should be happy too…

Candace laughed again and kissed the top of Perry's head, and Perry's heart shattered.


	2. The Platypus

The next few months took their toll on Perry. While he might have been a platypus on the outside, inside he was still undeniably human, and plagued with undeniably human depression.

The house was happy. Candace was thrilled at having a little brother. Baby Phineas was the happiest, most easy-going baby Perry had ever seen. He so rarely cried, even in want—a mere soft noise that sounded like a cross between a whimper and a knowing laugh was all he ever made to indicate he required attention. Linda's eyes were full and happy with her children; only reverting to their hollow melancholy at night, after they had both been put to bed.

Nights were hardest for Perry, too. At night he dreamt. He dreamt of his human life and everything he had lost. He dreamt of his double life as a secret agent, the intense daily training, the finesse and expertise, the feeling of accomplishment when busting evil. He dreamt of his life as a police sergeant, keeping the city safe in a slightly more mundane way, but no less rewarding. He dreamt holding Linda in his arms, of building block towers with Candace. He dreamt of it all being so suddenly and cruelly snatched away from him. And in the morning he'd wake up, only to find that it had all been real, trapped in a speechless platypus's body.

"Mom!" Candace started to complain that summer. "Phineas and Perry won't play with me!"

"Phineas is still too young to play, honey," Linda would answer. "And Perry's just a platypus. They don't do much."

_Oh, if only you knew that I'm suffering right along with you. That I'm suffering even more than you. At least you still have our children._

Linda _was _still grieving, though. Perry could see it in the way she moved, the slightly delayed reactions, the far-off look in her eyes when she thought no one was watching her. And Perry suffered silently along with her, shouldering her sorrows along with his own, giving her knowing gazes and hoping that at least some part of her could interpret that the platypus was at least there for her emotionally.

Near the end of summer, she began attending a support group for the recently widowed. Since many of the participants had young children, there was a daycare provided where she left Candace and Phineas during the meetings. Candace had brought Perry along the first day, but since the platypus had scared most of the other kids, the daycare supervisor asked her and Linda to leave him at home the next day. Not that Perry was worried about Candace having nothing to do without him there. She had nearly forgotten about Perry as soon as she entered the playroom that first day, where Phineas and another baby (and about the only other child in the room who _hadn't _freaked out at the sight of Perry), Ferb, exchanged such thoughtful, knowing looks between the two of them that Candace was convinced that the babies _must _be up to _something, _and thus spent the entire two hours staring at them suspiciously.

So Perry was left at the house alone the next day.

He lay in the sunbeam that poured in through the patio door, awash in its glow, lazing about in it deceptively like any other house pet.

Pet. The pet platypus. Pet.

_I'm Perry. I'm Perry the platypus and that's it. Get out of my mind, get out of my mind, every single memory of my human life, that was Phineas the First and he's dead now, now I'm just Perry, let me forget, just let me forget, please please please, I can't live like this anymore…_

He winced in despair, a tear leaking out of his clenched-shut eyes.

That was the first time he had cried as a platypus. He hadn't even thought platypuses _had _tear ducts…

He opened his eyes, bringing a webbed hand to his line of vision. A hand that was more dexterous than that of a normal platypus. Eyes that were more focused. A brain that was more fine-tuned.

_As much as I wish it, I can't change the fact that no matter who or what I am, I'm not normal. I wasn't a normal human… and I'm not a normal platypus. And I have to live with this. I have to live this second life while only being taunted with memories of my first while…_

A low, urgent, familiar beeping noise began emanating from the coat closet.

…_while embarking on a third, double-life?_

Perry stood up unsteadily on his hind legs and made his way to one of the hidden portals that led to his secret agent lair. Of course, being a secret agent, his whole house had been specially modified to provide numerous portals of access to his own personal underground headquarters, but since becoming a platypus Perry hadn't even considered the possibility that he'd ever use them again… that was his old, human life, right? But now he was unmistakably being summoned back into action.

_They DO remember that I'm still a platypus, right?_

Perry suddenly grinned in exultation. Wait a minute! That was it! They must have found out who had done this to the agents, and maybe how to change them all back! There was analysis, there was espionage, and there was going to be serious _ass-kicking. _

Once in the closet, Perry managed to pull the door shut behind him (he was home alone, but one could never be too careful) and smacked the left side of the wall where the hidden button was. This was one that he had always hit with his foot before, it being so low to the ground… which was a fortunate design choice now, given Perry's current height.

The floor dropped out from underneath him, and Perry fell through a winding maze of tubes—and was knocked about them far more than what he was used to. They were built for a human, after all, and not well-equipped for a smaller creature to easily slide through. It was a banged and bruised platypus who finally landed in the way-too-large spy chair, Monogram waiting for him on the monitor.

"Ah! There you are, Agent P. I'm glad to see you responded so quickly."

Perry rubbed his sore head for a moment before crossing his arms in irritation. He used to always snark back to Monogram when he was being, well, aggravatingly authoritative, but until he got his vocal chords back, gestures would have to do.

As usual, though, Monogram didn't seem like he noticed his agent's irritation at all. "Hold on a minute, Agent P, where's your hat? We can't conduct business if you're not wearing your fedora, you know company rules!"

Perry sighed. He had actually lost it the day of his escape… but he thankfully had a spare. Monogram wouldn't continue with whatever it was without compliance with company protocol. He dug into a side drawer on the desk that held the monitor and pulled out the spare fedora, smartly snapping it on his head and adjusting it. This one had always been a little small for him, but it fit his platypus size just about perfectly.

"Excellent! _Now _you're Agent P. Anyway, we have an assignment for you, a very important one. I realize that you're still a… whatever it is you are again—"

Perry made a clicking, growling noise of irritation.

"Oh, right, a platypus! But still, I trust you've been training in your new body."

Perry gulped nervously. He hadn't been doing a lick of training, truthfully. Again, that was part of his old life, the one that was dead and gone and in the past, right? At least, unless he ever became human again—

"You're our best agent, Agent P, and you're also the one who broke out of our high security holding in the first place. By the way, you're getting your pay heavily reduced for that incident, and don't be counting on your Christmas bonus for the next few years, either. But it proves my point. You can't keep a good agent down, and you're the best of the best. Which is why we're sending _you _on this mission. We believe we've found who's responsible for turning you all into a little version of Noah's Ark."

Perry instantly snapped to a completely focused attention.

The screen blinked to show a very awkward photo of a scrawny, somewhat crazed looking man in a lab coat. Not that any picture of him would have been prize-worthy, Perry had to admit—he had certainly seen a fair number of people who were easier on the eyes than this guy—but still, it was if the organization had made it a point to get the least flattering photo available of him, as he seemed to be right in the middle of a sneeze whilst moving either into or out of the frame, leaving a definite motion blur.

"I know what you're thinking: that we made it a point to get the least flattering photo available of him—but that's not entirely true, pretty much _every _photo of him is this bad." The screen flickered back to Monogram. "Anyway, his name is Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, and—well, come to think of it, I guess I don't know if he's a doctor or not—but he must be, right? He's a mad scientist, and he's evil, and all evil mad scientists are doctors, it's part of the code."

Perry blinked.

"Anyway. While we don't have any solid conclusive evidence of Dr. Doofenshmirtz being behind your animal transformations, he did, at about the same time as the incident, purchase a skyscraper in the middle of town and name it 'Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated'—" Here Monogram paused, and Perry did too, both of them feeling the strange sensation that some sort of catchy jingle had played along with Monogram as he said the name.

Monogram cleared his throat. "That was weird. But anyway, back to the mission briefing. He has this, um, evil corporation and he's clearly a mad scientist by the way he's dressed and… we don't have any other leads…"

Perry raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, so the evidence against him is circumstantial, but it's the best we've got! I want you to follow him and see if he's up to any other evil schemes, then report back to us. Right now he should be at the photography studio in the center of town, getting a more flattering picture taken."

Perry stared at the monitor incredulously.

"What?" asked Monogram defensively. "I told you, his pictures are atrocious, so we set him up for a free photo session so we have a better picture on file that won't burn our eyeballs out. But anyway! That's your mission, Agent P. You know what to do. Good luck."

The screen flickered to black.

Perry sighed. _I know what to do? I'm a freaking platypus being sent on a wild goose chase after some probably psychotic man who apparently can't even take a good picture, let alone be responsible for…_

He stopped his train of thought, taking a few deep breaths. _Calm down, Agent P, calm down. Sometimes you have to follow a lot of false leads to find the main one. And besides, maybe this Doofenshmirtz guy actually IS behind all this. And if he is…_

Perry's eyes narrowed as he pounded one webbed fist into the other webbed hand.

_I'm going to kick his ass for what he did to me._

…

Perry should have felt absolutely ridiculous, darting about town on his mission, all his spy gear readily accessible in his fedora like always… he would have looked pretty slick if he could be seen… and if he weren't a platypus.

But still, platypus or not… for the first time since actually _becoming _a platypus, Perry felt alive again. Definitely not like the old, human Phineas Flynn, but strangely enough he still felt the same amount of zeal, of zest, of _purpose, _darting behind a mailbox right across the street from the photography studio, surveying the building. He might be in a different, ridiculous looking body, running after some unphotogenic mad scientist… but he was still doing a job, _his _job, and the thrill of the chase was pumping new motivation and drive in his veins.

Before he could even begin to survey the slew of people walking by the building in order to judge when would be the best time to pass through them unseen, though, the mad scientist himself stepped out and onto the sidewalk, grinning in total bliss. "Finally, a picture of me that won't burn my eyeballs out!" he proclaimed.

Perry recoiled further behind the mailbox but still craned his head just enough around the corner to get a look at his new nemesis. Yes, he did look better in person… but not by much. Still though, this was undeniably the very Doofenshmirtz he was looking for, which meant now was the time for undercover observ—

Doofenshmirtz suddenly stopped in his tracks, suspiciously looking from side to side. "Why do I have the distinct feeling that someone's doing some undercover observation on me right now?"

And then he saw the mailbox, and Perry. Their eyes locked.

Perry froze up, at an utter loss. What to do, what to do, what to do, this was supposed to be an undercover mission (wasn't it?), and his spy training had dictated that if anyone actually caught you in the act of an undercover mission, the response was _quick and decisive physical force, _but still, he was a _platypus, _a platypus wearing a fedora, but anyway, would Doofenshmirtz really figure out on his own that he was a secret agent?

Doofenshmirtz rubbed his eyes. "Perry the Platypus?" he finally said in disbelief.

Perry's eyes grew even wider, if possible, his own disbelief now tenfold. _Wait a second, how in the samhill does he know my name?_

"That's you, isn't it? Perry the Platypus?" Doofenshmirtz finally began to giggle incredulously. "Perry the Platypus! You're actually a—a _platypus! _You know, when I got that notification in the mail yesterday that said I'd been assigned a nemesis named Perry the Platypus I assumed that was just some silly code name or whatever, but I wasn't expecting—" He clutched his sides with laughter, almost overcome with giddy amusement, giving him trouble in getting his words out of his mouth. "I wasn't expecting for you to actually be a _platypus! _And what a cute precious little hat, too—"

SMACK!

Perry wasted no time in leaping off the ground and delivering a well-aimed blow to Doofenshmirtz's face. As "cute" as this whole thing was, Doofenshmirtz knew who he was and his cover was blown, and—

"Hey!" Doofenshmirtz shouted, his laughter gone. "Don't interrupt my evil laughter! —Well, okay, so that was more like giddy laughter, but still—it's the principle of the thing!"

Perry leapt up in the air again to deliver another blow, but this time either Doofenshmirtz was ready for him, or he just luckily and instinctively blocked himself against the attack. With one defensive swipe Doofenshmirtz sent Perry tumbling, slamming him against a street vendor's cart and knocking off an assortment of gala and granny smith.

"Ha!" crowed Doofenshmirtz. "How do you like _them _apples, Perry the Platypus?" He laughed, half evilly and half at his own joke. Realizing that he was the only one who seemed to have gotten it, his laughter died off awkwardly as he looked around at both Perry and the befuddled onlookers. "You know, apples… I knocked him into an apple cart… it's a joke, come on…"

Unamused, Perry picked himself up and calmly drew his grappling hook-slash-stun gun from his hat, aiming it at the mad scientist.

Doofenshmirtz took a moment to consider this new development. "Hmm… I think now's my cue to flee in terror like the cowardly villain I am."

And that he did.

Perry was quick to follow. Pushing aside the assorted apples, he gave chase on his—on his scrawny little platypus feet that didn't even really have legs to go with them—

Oh, to hell with it.

Reaching again into his fedora, he pulled out his jetpack, strapping it on and blasting off.

"Whoa," he heard one onlooker say. "I want that guy's autograph."

Although he was now rocket propelled, Perry had still given Doofenshmirtz enough of a head start so that by the time he finally caught up with him, Doofenshmirtz had already made it not only inside his corporate building _(Well what do you know, it actually IS called Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated, _Perry thought to himself), but to the elevator. "Nice try, Perry the Platypus," he taunted to the quickly-approaching-but-not-quickly-enough agent, "but you can't hope to beat my executive—" The elevator doors closed. "Hey, wait, I wasn't finished yet!"

Closed elevator doors were not a problem for Perry. He had a set of elevator pliers in his hat for just such an occasion. Quickly and expertly prying the doors open, he again pulled out his grappling hook gun and fired a cable that attached itself to the bottom of the ascending elevator cab. In an instant he was being carried along, up and up.

When the elevator finally reached its destination, Perry pulled out his miniature blow-torch, preparing to cut a hole through the floor of the elevator cab… until he remembered that he was much smaller and flatter than he used to be. No blow-torch necessary, surprisingly! He carefully crawled through the tiny space between the cab and the wall and tumbled out into the room seconds before the elevator doors closed.

"_Perry the Platypus?" _cried Doofenshmirtz, utterly taken aback.

Perry rolled his eyes. What, was he expecting someone else?

"You actually followed me all the way up the elevator shaft? That's… that's really freakin' _cool! _Here I was, wondering if I should be offended that this do-gooder organization sends a _platypus _after me, as if I'm not worth any other higher-evolved life form, but you are definitely a worthy opponent!"

Perry couldn't stop the smile that began creeping up on his bill. Yes, even though he'd been out of training for a few months, and even though he was now a platypus, he still had it—

SLAM!

A huge cage suddenly dropped from the ceiling and right over Perry.

"…_but not worthy enough to avoid my trap!"_

Once over his initial shock, Perry gave Doofenshmirtz a disbelieving, _are you kidding me? _look, easily passing one arm between the bars. They were wide enough apart that he could have fit his whole _body _through easily.

Doofenshmirtz looked defensive. "Come on, Perry the Platypus, cut me some slack, I wasn't expecting you to be so _small!"_

Perry crossed his arms.

"Look, now that I know you're actually a platypus, I'll build platypus-sized traps in the future, okay? Are you happy now? Stop pouting at me like that, I need to tell you my evil plan!"

Perry sighed. What was it with these evil types and their almost compulsive need to tell their captive nemeses _everything _of what they were doing? Sometimes spying was completely unnecessary; the villain would just up-front tell you everything that you wanted to know. And seeing as that was his mission here in the first place… Perry compliantly stepped fully back in the trap and gave Doofenshmirtz an attentive look.

Doofenshmirtz brightened. "Ah, good! I see you know how this whole nemesis thing works. That's good, I wouldn't want to have to explain _that, _too…" He scratched his head. "Wait a minute, where was I? Oh yes, the evil plot, _duh! _Perry the Platypus, direct your attention to…" He waved his arm across the room with dramatic, diabolical flair, but stopped himself there, his eyes darting to the left and to the right, looking a little embarrassed. "Well, okay, so as you can see, it's about the _only _thing in the room you can direct your attention to… I only just bought this place, you know, I'm still renovating."

Perry nodded. Indeed, the large room looked like an evil-lair-in-progress, half of the walls with fresh coats of dark-colored paint, but the other half was still unpainted, drab, and way too white for a villain's hideout. And aside from a recliner and a sheet covering something large near the window, there wasn't much to speak of actually in the room, either. Perry could only assume that whatever it was under the sheet was the evil plot, not the recliner.

"And it's not the recliner!" Doofenshmirtz clarified. "I mean, yes, the recliner is evil because it's _mine, _but my actual evil device that's part of my scheme is under this sheet!" He grabbed said sheet with vigor, but hesitated yet again. "Wait a minute, I haven't told you the backstory yet."

Perry blinked.

"Of course I have a backstory! I have about five hundred backstories! Now let's see, which is the backstory for this particular… oh yes!" He frowned dangerously. "This backstory might be my absolute _least _favorite. And also probably my most recent." His eyes darkened, and his voice grew lower. _"Definitely _my most recent."

Perry gulped. Up until that point he was simply chalking up Doofenshmirtz's ramblings to those of a lunatic, but there was a sudden anger and, to Perry's surprise, sadness in his eyes that forced the platypus to reassess his initial impression of the scientist.

"_This _whole backstory started a few months ago. Life was going great! …Well, okay, so it wasn't going that great, my totally thankless job as an adjunct science professor at the Danville Community College pays _peanuts _and the kids are all so mouthy and unappreciative and—" He stopped himself. "Anyway, whatever, we're on summer break now, I'm not going to think about my crappy job, I'm going to tell you my crappy backstory! So anyway, despite that and being laughed at all the time and being a total failure professionally and all… at least I had a successful private life! And my wife and I were very happy. We were going to have another baby."

Perry was staring in total shock, and he knew it, and he couldn't stop it. _Wife? _This guy had a _wife? _And they were going to have a _child? Another _child? They already _had _one?

Doofenshmirtz glared at Perry. "Don't give me that look, Perry the Platypus! Why are you so shocked that I'm a family man? Even evil scientists can find domestic happiness too, you know!" He suddenly brightened. "Wait wait wait, hold everything, I haven't shown you my little pride and joy yet!"

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open and shoving a photograph of a dark-haired girl with a somber expression in the still totally flabbergasted Perry's face. "You see? That's my little girl! That's my Vanessa! This is her kindergarten picture, of course, she's gotten her hair cut since then, it's a lot shorter now—but she'll be starting first grade in a few weeks, and then I'll have an up-to-date picture I can shove in people's faces!"

Perry still couldn't move. For one thing, seeing this crackpot completely flip-flop his entire evil act and turn into a blathering, doting father, the kind of person you fervently pray _doesn't _sit next to you on a ten-hour flight, was jarring enough. But Perry could hardly even focus on _that. _All he _could_ focus on was: _He has a daughter. He has a daughter… who's about the same age as MY daughter. _Candace would be starting kindergarten in a few weeks; the two girls were only about a year apart.

_Oh no oh no OH** NO **__do NOT start sympathizing with your nemesis just because you've discovered that you both have daughters about the same age! That has nothing to do with… with ANYTHING!_

But seeing the light in Doofenshmirtz's eyes the moment he had pulled out Vanessa's photograph, and the ease in which his backstory had moved to involve her, Perry feared that it might have _everything _to do with _everything_.

"She's my little ray of sunshine!" he was saying fondly, smiling at the numerous photos of his daughter that he carried around with him. "Well, metaphorically speaking, of course, I'm evil and I hate sunshine and bright things like that—and so does she! She's not exactly evil yet, but give her time…" Suddenly seeming to realize he'd gotten off track, Doofenshmirtz quickly snapped the wallet shut again and put it back into his pocket. "Well, anyway, so that's my daughter—and a few months ago my wife discovered she was pregnant again! We'd been trying for awhile, you know, and I've always been promising Vanessa that one day she'd have a little baby brother…"

Perry winced, hoping that Doofenshmirtz didn't notice. This was hitting _way _too close to home…

Thankfully, Doofenshmirtz seemed to be lost in his own bittersweet tale, his eyes far-off and unfocused. "And finally I could actually promise her for _real, _that she _was _actually going to get one in a few months! The ultrasound showed it was a boy, he was healthy and everything was fine, and then suddenly, the next ultrasound—"

Perry blinked, gulping in worry.

Doofenshmirtz's eyes suddenly narrowed dangerously, his fists clenched in anger. "And the next ultrasound he was _dead! _A miscarriage! And then the doctor's going on and on about how a lot of pregnancies end in miscarriage and there's tests that we can take and blah blah blah and so it turns out Charlene has antiphospholipid syndrome—did you get that, Perry the Platypus? Antiphospholipid syndrome! It's a mouthful! It's basically a really long way of saying that her immune system thinks that babies are a _disease _and that when she was pregnant with Vanessa her white blood cells were building up immunity so that the next time the 'disease' came it would know how to fight it off and her own stupid immune system killed the baby and… okay, come to think of it, antiphospholipid syndrome _is _shorter to say than all that."

Perry gulped, his throat constricting. So much for not sympathizing with the enemy.

"Anyway," Doofenshmirtz continued, unclenching his hands, his voice suddenly becoming very flat in comparison to what it had been previously (although it didn't remain that way for long), "so that _dummkopf _doctor told Charlene that she'll never be able to have any more children, and I said to him, 'Hey now, I'm a mad scientist, if she wants to have more children I'll find a way to let her!' and the gynecologist said 'No, I mean really, that's not possible,' and Charlene said, 'Let it go Heinz, you're making a scene,' and I said, 'NO THIS IS MAKING A SCENE!' and I… well, I pushed him into the color-coded and really creepy uterus model and it broke in two and the doctor broke his wrist on it but he still punched me in the face anyway, so I punched him right back—anyway, so now I owe him a couple of thousand dollars in medical bills and in repaying for that creepy model, and _then, _as if it couldn't get any worse, Charlene serves me up with _divorce papers! _She told me, 'It takes so many things to make love last, but most of all it takes respect, and I can't live with a man I don't respect!'" Doofenshmirtz snorted angrily. "What a pisser." Remembering that he was relating his story to someone, he quickly apologized to Perry, "Oh, sorry, pardon my French, Perry the Platypus, but… as you can see, I'm a little distressed over this whole stupid ordeal…"

He suddenly jumped up, his evil grin back in full force, and he scurried back to the hidden contraption under the sheet. "Which is why I've decided to fully embrace _my evil side! _Really, I've been resisting it for too long, I've always had it in me you know, even that aptitude test in high school said that my ideal profession was 'evil scientist', I don't know why I didn't just accept my calling right then and there, but no, I had to try my hand at everything else—and let me just warn you, Perry the Platypus, I'm not exaggerating when I say 'everything else', I really _have _tried everything else—if we're going to be nemeses you'll probably hear a _lot _of these backstories and they might seem like they contradict each other, but believe me, they all really happened, and…" He stopped to consider all that he had just said. "That was a ridiculously run-on sentence, wasn't it?"

Perry nodded dryly.

"Sorry. I get to evil ranting and it just, you know, happens." He quickly re-adopted his intense, pleased smirk, grabbing the sheet. "But enough evil ranting, on to the _pièce de résistance!" _He yanked off the sheet, revealing a laser nearly as tall as Doofenshmirtz and about ten feet long, pointing ominously towards the open window. _"Behold! _The Hospital-Staff-Removal-Inator!"

Perry stared in complete shock. Things had just turned a lot more weird, and a lot more dire.

"You see, Perry the Platypus," said Doofenshmirtz matter-of-factly, "instead of blaming my wife-soon-to-be-ex-wife or her immune system or even just a random and inexplicable act of God, I'm instead choosing to be more reasonable and am placing all the blame on the doctors and other hospital personnel."

Perry continued to stare incredulously.

"And with this deceptively generic and cliché plot device, I will eliminate every single staff member of every single hospital _in the entire tri-state area!"_

That was it. Enough was enough.

Perry shot out of his "trap", grabbing Doofenshmirtz by the ankle, and yanked him down to the floor before he could push the button or pull the lever or flip the switch or whatever he needed to do to turn the laser… thing… inator on.

"_AAARRGH!" _yelled Doofenshmirtz in both surprise and irritation, kicking Perry squarely in the gut and away from him, and scrambled back to his feet. "You are ruining my over-the-top and disproportionate bid for revenge!"

Before he could get back to the laser-inator-thing, though, Perry was back on his feet, leaping in the air, spinning around, and—

_SMACK!_

"_OWWW!" _Doofenshmirtz brought his hands to the stinking area on his face where Perry's large, flat tail had whacked him. _"Man, _that hurts! Not fair!"

Perry had no time—or desire—to apologize. He jumped up on top of the Hospital-Staff-Removal-Inator.

"_No no NO, don't TOUCH that!" _Doofenshmirtz yelped, completely panicked. "You're standing right on top of the power generator, and if you jostle it even at all—"

Perry firmly grasped said power generator with both hands and tore it completely off the inator, ominous sparks flying.

"_WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? ANY JOSTLING AT ALL WILL SHUT IT DOWN, BUT DOING __**THAT**__ TRIGGERS THE SELF-DESTRUCT!" _Doofenshmirtz paused. "Hmm, in retrospect, maybe that wasn't the smartest design choice…"

The machine, indeed, was now emitting smoke and dire-sounding beeps. Perry tumbled off, landing on his back, and stared in horror at the impending destruction.

Doofenshmirtz, for his part, was frantically trying to replace the power generator on the machine, with expected unsatisfactory results. "In no less than nineteen seconds this thing is gonna blow to smithereens!" he cried, glaring at Perry. _"Curse you, Perry the Platypus!" _He stopped himself, his glare replaced by a look of dumb incredulity. _"Curse you? _Did I really just say _curse you? _How clichéd can you get? That's what _all _evil villains say when their plans are foiling up in their faces! —And that means that I am officially an evil villain too! HOORAY! So I say again, curse you, P—"

As you can probably imagine, that little bit of dialog lasted no less than nineteen seconds, and Doofenshmirtz's second-ever curse of Perry the Platypus was cut short by a blinding, deafening, scalding explosion.

Explosions were nothing new to Perry, however.

Blasting away from the carnage via his jetpack, Perry took to the skies with a cool, self-assured resolve, firmly clutching Doofenshmirtz by the shoulders and carrying him away from the destruction as well.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" cried Doofenshmirtz, looking at Perry with an utterly appalled expression. "You're so heroic that you save the villain from certain destruction brought on by his own evil plot? You _sicken _me! And don't you think I'm going to feel indebted to you for this, because after all, that explosion was your fault in the first place, so I owe you _nothing_—"

They were now flying over the river, and Perry realized that this was a prime time to drop his cargo.

"_AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! CURSE YOU PERRY THE_—"

_**SPLASH!**_

Perry dusted his hands off with focused satisfaction. That was…

…well, truth be told, that was really, really _weird._

…

A few minutes later, Perry was back at his headquarters, staring at the blank monitor, his hands poised over the keyboard.

Typing was not immediate, though.

For one thing, he was a platypus, with awkward and clumsy platypus fingers that made even the very notion of typing difficult.

For another…

The truth of the matter was that Perry wasn't sure _what _to make of that day's events. He had been sent after Doofenshmirtz to discover if he was indeed the anonymous mastermind that had turned him and all the other agents into animals in the first place, and in regards to that, he… still didn't know for sure. Yes, it seemed _likely, _since he was clearly… well, maybe not _evil _evil, but still profoundly messed up, and obviously a gadgeteer genius. True, he hadn't seen that… that whatever-it-was… inator… thing, whatever Doofenshmirtz had called it—he hadn't seen it actually zap away anyone, hospital personnel or no, but he _had _seen it explode, which was certainly cause for concern at the very least.

But _had _Doofenshmirtz really been the one who turned the entire agency into animals? If it really _had _been him, wouldn't he have… mentioned it?

Then again, why _would _he mention it when his beef was clearly with someone else at the moment?

Perry felt his throat constrict again. Alarmed, he shook his head, trying to clear the sympathy rearing its ugly head again. But it was no use. As cracked as Doofenshmirtz clearly was (or perhaps _because_ of it), Perry couldn't really be angry at him. Having to deal with a miscarriage and then a divorce nearly simultaneously…

His fingers still hovered over the keyboard without moving.

So what should his report even say?

_What CAN I say? I'm sure they were watching me anyway… _Perry's frown grew deeper. How weird it was to hear Doofenshmirtz call him the name that little Candace had given him just a few months previous… and truth be told it made his blood boil a little bit; only his family could call him Perry, his family and no one else! And if Doofenshmirtz had known his name because of his notification, that meant that Monogram knew of his new name too, and thus clearly knew that Agent P was living with his actual family.

And he had said not one word about it. Not one word of condolence. Not one inquiry as to how things were going…

Perry sighed. Why should he be surprised? That was how it had always been when he was a human, too. Only his species had changed. To Monogram, he was still simply Agent P.

…but to Doofenshmirtz, he was Perry the Platypus.

He was Perry the Platypus, worthy opponent, accursed rival, and patient captive and listener. A good target for venting out his problems, as it were.

Not for the first time, Perry dearly wished he could talk again… so that he could use Doofenshmirtz for that very same purpose. And, he realized with a start, Doofenshmirtz would probably be more understanding than Monogram could ever be.

That is, assuming that he wasn't responsible for all this in the _first _place. …And Perry _was _assuming that, he was surprised to realize.

The blank monitor still taunted him.

That left the question of what to report. Was Doofenshmirtz taken care of for good, a harmless crackpot that they wouldn't hear from again? Or did he require constant supervision, having created a device that supposedly actually eliminated people? Perry didn't know if the inator was capable of what Doofenshmirtz claimed it was, but on the other hand, he couldn't deny those claims either. And if he really _was _capable of all that, then he was in fact a very real threat.

And yet he had still carried him from the wreckage.

Perry felt a pang at his heart, and he lowered his eyes. _That, _at least, he knew why he had done. It was split-second, but it was decisive and final and Perry would have done it again if he had to redo this whole scenario.

He didn't want to put _another _little girl through losing her father.

Finally, slowly at first but growing in speed and direction, Perry began to type his report. A report that wasn't a lie because he had come to a number of contradictory conclusions; this was simply one of them. But this was also the only conclusion that would keep him sane. He knew the agency. He knew that when someone was deemed a threat, they liked to keep the original agent assignment with that threat for as long as possible for consistency. And he knew that, despite how absolutely wacky this whole assignment had been, every kick and punch and slap—both given and received—had felt absolutely _marvelous_.

So if this was what he had to do to feel alive, to feel like he had regained at least some purpose, then so be it.

_STATUS LOG  
AGENT P  
5 August 1997_

_Assignment: discover intents of Dr. H. Doofenshmirtz, of Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc., in regards to recent animal transformations_

_Findings: Doofenshmirtz cannot yet be decisively connected to the species-altering events, but probable links point in his direction. He has the skills and expertise to create deadly weaponry, and a troubled home life gives him the motive to endanger innocent lives for the purposes of his own deadly revenge._

_Final assessment and proposed course of action: Doofenshmirtz is a very viable threat. CONSTANT MONITORING RECOMMENDED._


	3. The Waffle Fries

From that day on, things were never the same.

Even on days when the support group didn't meet, Candace still had not one, but two little boys to eye suspiciously. Linda had very quickly befriended Lawrence Fletcher, the father of the little green-haired baby, Ferb, that Phineas had taken to; the two parents would bring their children to each others' houses for playdates while they themselves grew closer.

Perry knew what was coming almost from the beginning._ Then the one day when the lady met this fellow… and they knew that it was much more than a hunch… that this group must somehow form a family…_

He knew it, and Linda and Lawrence seemed to know it almost as soon as he did, but they both still waited for nearly a year, guilty looks in their eyes when they would tentatively bring it up, both of them being so recently widowed.

Perry was overcome by such a melancholy acceptance that he could do nothing but hide away from his family and tremble for a few days. Luckily Doofenshmirtz was keeping quiet.

But finally, one night, instead of curling up next to Candace or Phineas, he instead curled up to Linda before she fell asleep, nuzzling her hand and giving her what he hoped was a soft and encouraging look. For one brief second, her eyes flickered with recognition… but then it was gone, replaced by a smile.

Linda and Lawrence officially got engaged the next day, and were married less than two months afterwards.

The blended family soon moved to a larger house on the outskirts of Danville. It had a large backyard, perfect for the kids and platypus to play in. The OWCA, upon learning of the move, equipped the new house with more appropriately sized secret entrances to Perry's lair, and removed all traces of the previous entrances at the old house. It was clear that they were expecting Agent P to remain in action. It was also clear that they were expecting him to remain a platypus.

As the years passed Perry kept a watchful eye on his family, both as the family pet and as the secret Agent P. As Candace made her way through elementary and middle school she pulled away from her pet platypus, her peers finding him creepy and Candace longing for social acceptance. No longer was Perry her "patty-tus". But Perry didn't despair. Some nights, instead of sleeping on Phineas's or Ferb's bed, he'd crawl into Candace's room and onto her bed instead, and if she was awake when he did so she didn't object, and in fact in the mornings he'd often awaken to a fond scratch on the head.

Phineas and Ferb, however, were not publicly embarrassed by their pet. They embraced him no matter what the circumstance or what they feared people would think. Soon, Perry was _their _pet more so than anyone else's, and Perry happily followed his boys whenever his occupation didn't interfere. He delighted in watching them grow up, the perfect brothers to each other. In some ways they were completely identical; in others they couldn't have been more different. Both were the most easy-going children Perry had ever known; both were clearly astronomically intelligent, even at a young age. But where Phineas had the wild imagination that could hardly be pinned down, the far more grounded Ferb would pin it down for him. Phineas was the social one of the duo; Ferb hadn't even spoken until he was four and a half years old—and even after that, his words were few and far between. Together, they were an unstoppable force… much to Candace's dismay.

Perry loved watching them, and he loved it when they involved him in their plans, but as the years went on, Doofenshmirtz concocted more and more plans too. Perry would often be loath to leave the boys, but almost just as often, after their battles that Perry always won, he would be loath to leave Doofenshmirtz as well.

Life for Perry, in a nutshell, would have seemed too bizarre to even comprehend if he ever really thought about it.

So he didn't think about it.

He was Perry the Platypus, pet to the Flynn-Fletchers and best enemy of Heinz Doofenshmirtz, and that was that. Some days he almost forgot—

…no. He never forgot. He always remembered. He couldn't escape his humanity.

"Hey look, Candace, Ferb and I found all your old baby pictures!"

Phineas held the book out to his older sister excitedly, Ferb clutching Perry. Candace, who had been lounging on the couch and reading a teen magazine, dropped the periodical in horror. "Ohmigosh Phineas, wherever you found those, you better put them back there right now!"

"Aw, come on, Candace, they're cute!" laughed Phineas good-naturedly, flipping open the book and cooing over baby Candace. "What are you so worried about?"

"I'm worried that there's pictures of me in there where I'm probably naked and drooling all over myself, and if _anybody _sees those my life will be _ruined!"_

"I think you're being a little overly dramatic," grinned Phineas. "It's not like you're the only person in the world with baby pictures. Hey, wait a minute, who's this?"

Both Candace and Ferb crowded on either side of Phineas and looked at the picture he was indicating, with a smallish, brown-eyed man holding a laughing baby Candace…

Perry's blood froze.

Candace examined the photo. "I think that's—"

"Let's see what the back says!" cried Phineas, apparently not having heard Candace. He pulled out the picture and read the writing on the back, looking even more confused. _"Phineas _and Candace? But that's not me!"

"_Duh!" _said Candace, rolling her eyes. "That's our dad. Our biological dad."

Phineas's eyes grew wide. "Our dad?"

Perry had frozen in Ferb's arms, unable to move, unable to think, only able to mutely stare at the photo of the man who had once, a lifetime ago, been… him.

"I was named after our dad? I never knew that!" Phineas carefully replaced the photo and turned to the next page. "Yeah, he must be our dad, there he is with Mom—and there they both are on your first birthday, feeding you cake!" He turned and looked at his older sister questioningly. "Why do you suppose Mom never talks about him? And why these photo albums were hidden in a box buried under a bunch of other boxes in the closet?"

"_That's _because I'm the least favorite child and nobody cares about my baby pictures," Candace grumbled.

Perry made a low, clicking, contradictory growl in Candace's direction.

"Or it could be because the memories of your father are too painful for Mum and she'd rather push the pain of the past aside entirely," Ferb pointed out.

"Hmm." Phineas looked at Candace again. "Whatever happened to him, then? Do you even remember him?"

Perry drew in his breath, as he, Phineas, and Ferb all looked at Candace expectantly.

Candace was unusually quiet and thoughtful for a few moments.

"I… no, not really… I mean, I remember him a _little _bit, but nothing really specific. The only specific thing I really remember is Mom telling me that he was gone for good."

"What did she say? What happened to him?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe we should ask her ourselves—"

"No, I don't mean I don't remember, I mean _I don't know. _And Mom doesn't either. He and a lot of other people just… they just vanished, I guess. No one ever figured out what happened to them."

Phineas looked stunned. "Just… _gone? _Just like that?"

Candace nodded. "Just like that."

A slight vibration on Perry's wrist provided him with the blessed excuse of leaving the scene, and the normally stealthy platypus immediately jumped at the chance to exit the crushing, heartbreaking reminder of everything he had once been. He squirmed out of Ferb's arms and scurried out of the room as quickly as he could on all fours.

"Hey, where's Perry going?" Phineas asked.

"Who cares, he always comes back anyway," said Candace lightly. "Come on, let's look some more at this book."

Perry moved into the bathroom as if on autopilot, robotically moving to the sliding tile panel on the wall and sliding into Secret Slide Number Eight that led to his underground headquarters, his heart pounding too intensely for any coherent thoughts to remain in his mind.

If he looked at all frazzled or out-of-sorts as he landed in his chair, Monogram either didn't notice it or didn't comment on it. "Good afternoon, Agent P. I hope you're hungry today, because Doofenshmirtz is at it again. I know he's been quiet for a few days now, but just early this morning he bought copious amounts of potatoes, and we want you to—"

Perry snapped on his jetpack and blasted away, not needing another word.

"—put… a… stop to it." Monogram huffed in irritation. "Why do I feel more and more like the fifth wheel around here?"

Perry kicked his rocket packs into overdrive, zooming to Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated at record speed. The sooner he got there, the sooner things would be back to normal and he'd be feeling like his old self again—

_Back to normal? _His _old self? _What Candace and Phineas and Ferb had been looking at _was _his old self! How could being a secret agent platypus who regularly does battle with a disturbed evil scientist ever be _normal?_ What had his life _come _to?

He had been intending on crashing through what he knew to be the kitchen window, but to his disappointment he found that it was already open, and instead of making a satisfactory crash he made a perfect yet non-destructive landing right in front of the stove.

Doofenshmirtz, sitting at the kitchen table and peeling what was indeed a copious amount of potatoes, looked genuinely surprised to see Perry. "Perry the Platypus? If I had known you were coming I would have closed the window!"

Perry growled dangerously.

"I'm afraid I don't have a trap prepared for you this time, I've been too busy working on _this!" _With his usual evil cackle, Doofenshmirtz motioned to the device sitting on his table, looking like a somewhat larger-than-average blender-like device perched atop a toaster oven. _"The Tater-Inator! _It slices, dices, scallops, mashes, bakes, and deep-fries, with a minimum amount of grease!"

Perry blinked.

There was a slight, awkward silence.

"Well, okay," Doofenshmirtz finally admitted, his cheeks flushing abashedly, "so it's not exactly the most _evil _invention I've ever devised—to be perfectly honest I just wanted to jump on the name before some jerk stole it from me, I mean, come on, _Tater-Inator, _it's a catchy name, someone else might have thought of it before me, but since it's an inator it has to be _mine, _and…"

Another awkward silence.

Doofenshmirtz abruptly grabbed a plate of finished potatoes and held them out to Perry.

"Waffle fries, Perry the Platypus?"

…

The Flynn-Fletchers had always been a good family to their pet platypus. They did extensive research on their exotic pet and learned that the platypus's diet consisted of worms, larvae, and shrimp, which they carefully and faithfully provided, along with the more readily and easily obtained cans of dog food. Before turning into a platypus, Perry would have been utterly turned off by the idea of growing accustomed to this kind of diet, but thankfully, whatever taste buds he had obtained upon his transformation didn't object to this new, questionable palate. It didn't exactly taste _good,_ but it didn't taste _bad_ either, and it filled him up.

But he had quickly discovered, as first Candace and then Phineas and Ferb began sneaking him table scraps, that the sense of taste was more a mental thing than anything else. Those small morsels that he would snarf up every once in a while would fire off so many pleasant memories of food that sometimes he took to actually begging at the table like a dog, wanting more of that wonderful sensation.

But even that wasn't the same; he was gobbling it with just his mouth like any mindless pet, not sitting at a table with cutlery and using his hands.

And yet that was exactly what he was doing here.

He tried to slow himself down, but he couldn't help himself; they were just _so delicious, _these waffle fries. They were drowning in ketchup, a condiment that the human Phineas could take or leave, but to the platypus Perry it was _taste, _it was _taste _and it was _marvelous, _and in no time at all he had already devoured nearly the entire plate of waffle fries and had covered them in ketchup no less than four times.

"Wow, Perry the Platypus, you eat like you haven't had a decent meal in _years!" _commented Doofenshmirtz, probably not even realizing how close to the mark he really was. "But that's perfectly alright, eat as much as you want, I have another batch cooking! Plus some shoestring potatoes! And don't worry, they're not actually made of shoestrings, they're just _cut _like them. I was skeptical at first myself, they're all tiny and crunchy, but they'll grow on you, I swear."

The Tater-Inator dinged.

"And I think the baked potatoes are done!" He opened up the bottom drawer where two potatoes wrapped in foil awaited him. Perry longingly sniffed the heavenly aroma as Doofenshmirtz painfully played hot potato with the potatoes, the potatoes being… well, hot, apparently hotter than he had been anticipating. "YEEOUCH! _Ouch ouch ouch that's hot!" _He managed to drop one squarely on Perry's plate. "And I'd recommend waiting a little bit before digging in, you bottomless pit, they're still a trifle _caliente." _He quickly dropped the other potato onto his own plate and rubbed his sore fingers with a pained expression on his face.

Perry snatched up his knife and fork, eagerly peeling off the foil wrapping and slicing open the potato, taking a brief moment to savor the smell before reaching for the salt and pepper shakers.

Doofenshmirtz let go of his fingers. "How stupid of me, I forgot the condiments!" He quickly jumped up and moved to the refrigerator, opening it up and digging through its contents, occasionally throwing an item or two in Perry's direction. "Here's some butter… oh, and sour cream—" He turned back to look at Perry. "Do you like sour cream, Perry the Platypus?"

Perry nodded eagerly.

"Well, too bad! Because I don't have any! But I do have some bacon bits." He threw a sealed plastic container squarely at Perry's head, bouncing it off the platypus before it came to a landing on the table. Doofenshmirtz laughed. "Ha ha! There, I got at least _one _petty jab at you in for the day. Wouldn't have felt right if I'd just done _nothing, _you know."

Perry was too concentrated on the food to even pretend to be annoyed. He pulled the lid off the container and began scooping bacon bits onto his potato.

"Hey, hold on a minute, don't take _all _of those! I want some too!"

Perry sighed, but dutifully pushed the container away.

"Now _that's _more reasonable. Sheesh, if I didn't know any better I'd think you were starving or something. Oh wait, we still don't have anything to drink! I'll get the champagne."

Champagne? Perry quickly but politely shook his head.

But Doofenshmirtz was already pulling the bottle from the fridge. "Aw, come on, Perry the Platypus, I so rarely have company and I can't drink this all by myself!"

Perry crossed his arms.

Doofenshmirtz's eyes lit up in understanding. "Oh, wait, I get it. You drove here, didn't you?"

Well, _flew _here, but he had the right idea. Perry nodded.

"Come on. Just one little sip won't hurt you." Doofenshmirtz gave Perry a large, pleading grin. "Come on. Just one sip? Please?"

Perry sighed in defeat, and held up one webbed finger.

Doofenshmirtz instantly and gleefully popped the cork from the bottle. _"Awesome! _I've been waiting for a special occasion to break this open, ever since my last five dates all cancelled on me!" Pulling the champagne goblets from his shelf, he gave Perry a sudden, sour look. "Not that you're my _date _or anything."

Perry growled in agreement.

"But still, date or not, you're eating my potatoes and drinking my champagne!" Doofenshmirtz carefully poured two glasses of champagne and sat down to his own waiting baked potato, passing one glass to Perry.

Perry carefully raised the glass to his bill and took a sip. Mmm, champagne was _another _wondrous taste he had all but forgotten.

"You know, Perry the Platypus, I never exactly had you pegged as a connoisseur of fine dining—no offense—but I guess I had you all wrong! You do appreciate fine dining! You like my baked potato, yes?"

Perry nodded and gave Doofenshmirtz a thumbs up before digging back into his potato.

"_Excellent! _Then my Tater-Inator is a success! _AH-HA HA HA HAAAAA…" _Doofenshmirtz stopped there, his evil laughter ending abruptly. "No, actually, I don't think that warranted an evil laugh." He picked up his knife and fork and cut open his own baked potato. "Could you please pass the salt, Perry the Platypus?"

Perry dutifully handed it over.

"Thank you!" Doofenshmirtz salted and peppered his potato and dug right in, although at a much slower pace than Perry. Perry, for his part, was attempting to slow down and eat in a more civilized fashion, although the glorious tastes were still nearly overwhelming him.

_It's a good thing I don't think about my life much. Because here I am, a platypus, having an amicable dinner of potatoes and champagne with my sworn enemy._

He swallowed another gulp of champagne.

_Why am I so used to this?_

Doofenshmirtz gulped down a mouthful of potatoes. "Sooo… what's new with you?" he asked, lightly and conversationally.

Perry shrugged. What was he supposed to say to that? Even if he _could _talk? _Oh, my biological children and their stepbrother just stumbled across old photographs that were a painful reminder of the man I used to be, you know, nothing special…_

Doofenshmirtz looked at Perry in surprise. "Now _that's _a downcast look, Perry the Platypus."

Perry gulped, straightening up. Dammit. No downcast looks here. He couldn't really afford that. That would just make him wish he could explain. He _couldn't, _though; he couldn't explain _anything, _what with the power of speech robbed from him these past ten years—

"You know, it's a shame you can't explain what's bugging you, because I can tell something's really got you down, and it's always therapeutic to talk about these things." With a small shrug, Doofenshmirtz quickly added, "Of course, the most therapeutic coping method is hatching evil schemes and all, but chatting over waffle fries is a close second."

Perry blinked, looking at Doofenshmirtz in confusion.

Doofenshmirtz looked a little guilty. "I'm sorry we couldn't do this earlier, Perry the Platypus. You know, catch up and chat and do battle with each other and all. I know, I know, you haven't heard anything from me for a few days now and when I'm finally ready to show you my newest inator it's not even evil at all. I've had other things on my mind. It was my weekend with Vanessa, you know, and I always try to get as much quality time in with her as possible… and, well, usually she either helps me with my evil schemes or is just all aloof and teenager-y and doesn't really do anything, you know? But this whole weekend she didn't even _speak _to me!" He paused for a moment. "Well, actually," he corrected, "she did speak to me once when I tried to apologize, something along the lines of 'Don't you dare even _look_ at me!' before she stormed out and spent the entire day out doing who-knows-what with her friends." He dug into his potato with a defensive snarl. "Well _excuse me, _I was only telling her that I picked up those tampons for her at the store like she asked me! How was I supposed to know she had friends over? She _never _has friends over! And what's the big deal, anyway? She's embarrassed that they know she has menstrual cycles or what? She's _female! _They _all _have menstrual cycles! It's not like it's a huge secret or anything!"

Perry set down his fork, giving Doofenshmirtz a sympathetic look. He might have made an embarrassing slip-up, but still, he _was _trying to be a good dad and he wasn't getting any reward for it.

"I'm trying to be a good dad, but I'm not getting any reward for it!" Doofenshmirtz sighed, picking at his potato with his fork but looking upwards helplessly. "So anyway, so she walked out on me—this was Saturday, by the way—and so I spent all day calling her even though she never answered, I mean really, I put in one hundred and seventy-three calls and they _all _went straight to voicemail—and when she finally came home that night naturally I grounded her, but Sunday she just took off again!" He sighed again. "I don't know, Perry the Platypus, when these kind of things happen… you just can't even think about evil, you know what I mean?" He looked back at Perry. "No, I don't suppose you _do _know what I mean. I don't suppose _you _have children."

It was the quickest, most momentary of gulps and eyes flickering to the ground, and Perry regained his composure almost as fast. But unfortunately, Doofenshmirtz knew Perry well enough to notice the flicker of remorse.

"Oooh, Perry the Platypus, _you _have a troubled backstory too!" he said with sympathetic concern.

Perry shook his head in irritation, turning away from him.

"Don't you lie to me, Perry the Platypus. I _know _troubled backstories, trust me. I can always tell."

Perry crossed his arms, still not looking at Doofenshmirtz. _Of course you'd know this one, _he tried to make himself think, _because it's all your fault. _He _tried _to make himself think it, anyway… but he couldn't. He didn't believe it for a second. True, there had never been anyone else who was a prime candidate for the whole turning-the-agents-into-animals episode. True, if it _were_ someone else that would mean that some dangerous evil genius had been running around free and uncaught for these past ten years, someone conceivably much more dangerous than Doofenshmirtz could even dream of being—and that was not a pleasant thought indeed.

But in their ten years of being nemeses, Perry had arrived at the conclusion that Doofenshmirtz _hadn't _been the mastermind behind that particular plot. In fact, he knew for a _fact_ that he wasn't. If he had been, he would have mentioned it. And gloated about his animal-transmorphing-ray-inator-whatever he would have called it. He liked to gloat about _every _evil scheme he had ever concocted, way down to the most trite and unimportant.

And he had never mentioned anything about figuring out how to turn people into animals.

Some brilliant, twisted, evil mind had snatched Perry's humanity from him… and it hadn't been Doofenshmirtz.

In fact…

"Well, maybe someday you'll want to talk about it. I know you're a platypus of few words and all, but whenever you want to vent, a nemesis is a good venting post, you know." Doofenshmirtz cut another bite of potato, slowly and thoughtfully putting it in his mouth. "It's… funny… when I think about it…" He swallowed and continued speaking, his voice now not hindered by food in his mouth. "So it's probably a good thing I don't think about it that much, but—"

Perry looked up to see Doofenshmirtz looking unusually calm and thoughtful, directing his attention to the Tater-Inator. "I mean, I should be miserable. Look at me, I'm forty-five years old and what do I have to show for a lifetime of evil? A device that cooks potatoes, that's _it."_

Perry growled in reminder.

"Yes, yes, you too of course… and Vanessa… but I'm talking _material _things here. Let's face it, Perry the Platypus, my life has _sucked. _You know it has, you've heard the vast majority of my backstories, and I'm just a cosmic punching bag or something. Do you know what it's like to fall in the mud? And get _kicked? _In the _head? _With an _iron boot?_ —Of course you don't, no one does, that never happens… sorry Perry, that's a dumb question, skip that… but anyway, you know, I _should _be miserable. And a lot of the times I _am, _I'm all miserable and diabolically hell-bent on seeking revenge and all, and that's fine and dandy, but…"

He set his fork down.

"But the funny thing is, right now, despite everything, I'm actually very… content." He blinked. "What's _wrong _with me? Because I _am _very content right at this moment, and I _like _it! But I have absolutely _no reason _to be content! I mean, having a delicious dinner of potatoes with my best enemy isn't grounds for—" He stopped himself there in surprise, turning his full attention back to Perry with a genuinely shocked expression.

Perry wasn't quite as shocked—in fact, he even threw Doofenshmirtz a sly grin, knowing that he had just come to the same conclusion Perry had long ago. Their relationship, however it could be defined (Perry was pretty sure that no words existed that could accurately and concisely sum it up), gave Doofenshmirtz—

"You really _are _my venting post, aren't you?" he said in dumbfounded realization. "You're—you're more therapeutic and effective than _any _psychiatrist, Perry the Platypus! And believe me, I've been through a _lot _of them!"

Perry smirked at him, scooping up his last bite of baked potato into his bill. Yes, enemies though they may be, Perry had always been the most captive (literally) audience to Doofenshmirtz's tales of woe. He listened.

But… _why?_

Perry's smirk faded into confusion.

He could say it was the pretense of simply learning exactly what his evil plot was, but clearly that wasn't always the case, today being a most egregious example. There obviously _was _no evil plot today, and yet there he sat, listening, listening while gratefully eating the food his nemesis provided him…

He looked down at his hands, hands that were grasping utensils, attached to a body sitting in a chair, a half-full glass of champagne by his side, and had to remind himself that he was still a _pet._ His family were loving and caring owners, but they thought of him as a _pet, _nothing more.

The only person who actually treated him as if he were _human_… was Doofenshmirtz.

Doofenshmirtz hadn't taken away his humanity. He had been _providing _it to him this entire time.

"A-ha!" Doofenshmirtz pointed triumphantly at Perry. "I saw that smile, Perry the Platypus, don't try to hide it from me! You're content too! Don't deny it!"

Surprised, Perry considered this for a moment.

Sure, he might be content _at this moment, _but what about in the long run? He had made peace with his life, yes, but… wait…

Perry closed his eyes, forcing himself to contemplate what things would be like if he were still human. No Perry the Platypus in this lifetime. Just human cop-slash-secret agent Phineas Flynn.

He'd have his wife and daughter and son… which he technically still had, but they'd _know _him in this hypothetical timeline, not just as the mindless family pet. He might not always be there for them physically, what with his demanding jobs and all, and…

But was that really for the best?

He could remember Linda's worrying, worrying that doubtless would have continued had her husband not "died" and continued on with his careers as always. He could remember going long stretches without seeing Candace, without being there for her, often missing out on so many of her milestones…

And what about Phineas—the _current _Phineas, his biological son?

The word happy didn't even _begin _to describe that boy. Phineas had a completely charmed life. Not only did he have an attentive mother and an older sister who, deep down, truly cared for him too… but he also had a father, a father with a much more steady, stable job that gave him plenty of time with both Candace and Phineas in addition to Ferb. And he had a brother who was his equal, his best friend, his partner in every sense of the word. It was impossible to imagine either Phineas or Ferb without the other. And yet, if Perry had never been transformed, if he were still human… they boys likely would have never even met.

Who know? Were things actually turning out for the _better _after his turning into a platypus? Could he even make that judgment one way or the other? Perry was lucky in many aspects that he was still able to be there for his family, watch them grow, and even literally protect them thanks to still keeping up his secret-agent persona. The Flynn-Fletcher family was _happy, _all five of them, and happy to a degree that they probably couldn't be if the original Phineas Flynn was still in the picture.

He had made peace with that years ago; it was the only way to stay sane. Well, that and actually keeping regular conversations—and regardless of the fact he that he couldn't actually speak, his conversations with Doofenshmirtz were still very much two-way. And so that… that he had as well. Somehow, he _was _still sane. He _had _made peace with himself, with his situation. And he _was…_

Gulping down his last sip of champagne, Perry turned back to Doofenshmirtz with a soft, much more deliberate smile on his bill and nodded in affirmation of his observation. Yes. He _was _content. In fact, right now, he couldn't imagine anything that would make him _more _content.

"Of course you are! Really, who _wouldn't _be content after such delicious waffle fries?"

Perry nodded again, and gave a low, clicking purr of thanks for the meal.

"You're welcome," Doofenshmirtz answered instantly.

Perry grinned more fully. It was always nice to be understood. He pushed his chair away from the table and hopped off.

"Wait, you're leaving already?" protested Doofenshmirtz. "But you haven't foiled my evil plan yet!"

Perry raised an eyebrow at him.

Doofenshmirtz chuckled in embarrassment. "Oh, right, the Tater-Inator _was _the evil plan."

Perry nodded. And he sure as hell wasn't going to foil a plan that produced such delicious potatoes. He reached into his fedora and pulled out his jetpack—and his eyes caught a splotch of ketchup that had landed to the side of his chair. Oops. He _had _gone a little overboard on those waffle fries. For one brief second he considered getting a towel to clean it up, but quickly decided against it. _I'll make Heinz clean that up. We are nemeses, after all._

So instead, he ignored the ketchup and strapped on his jetpack, throwing Doofenshmirtz a farewell salute.

Doofenshmirtz returned it. "It's been far too long, we really should do this more often! I promise I'll have another scheme tomorrow. And I promise it'll be way eviler than this. And maybe we could have more waffle fries!" He stopped briefly to consider this. "No, actually, that wouldn't be evil; what _would _be evil is if I promised you the waffle fries right now, but then break my promise tomorrow. So—" He gave Perry an over-the-top, evil grin. "I _promise you _we will have more waffle fries tomorrow," he said, very forcefully and deliberately.

Perry sighed. _He tries so hard… _He blasted out of the window, his work there done.

Wait, something was missing…

But it wasn't missing for long. Even when flying away from the building, Perry still heard Doofenshmirtz's outraged shock loud and clear.

"What _is _this? He dropped ketchup all over my floor and _didn't clean it up? CURSE YOU, PERRY THE PLATYPUS!"_

Perry smiled.


End file.
